


Hooked Into a Machine

by Gay_Jesus_Probably



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Dehumanization, Gen, Infiltration, Kidnapping, Private Investigators, like seriously a lot, more tags added as they become relevant, there is a lot of worldbuilding regarding how squips work here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 19:34:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14196207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gay_Jesus_Probably/pseuds/Gay_Jesus_Probably
Summary: As private investigators, Michael and Christine saw a lot of cases. This one stood out, in that they were looking to find out what happened to someone who vanished eight years ago, to give the grieving father some closure about his sons fate. A sad, but low stakes case.Until the victims laptop led Michael to a shady corporation, infiltrating a product demonstration. A product that turned out to be people, brainwashed people with supercomputers inside their heads.And the example at the demo turned out to be the victim they were looking for.





	Hooked Into a Machine

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys welcome to the worlds most overcomplicated AU which has consumed my goddamn life. You don't want to know how much worldbuilding I've done for this. It's a lot. It's a fucking lot.  
> Okay so fair warning before you get started, there is going to be some darker subjects later on in the story, and I will mark the relevant chapters with non-spoiler trigger warnings in the beginning note. So for your own safety, please make sure you read them. There won't be any graphic descriptions, but there will be references to and discussions about some upsetting topics, so. Just a heads up about that. Not in this chapter though, further down the line.  
> Also, shoutout to yellow_caballero and nymm_at_night for encouraging me with this nightmare fic and tolerating me word vomiting small essays of worldbuilding at them. It just kind of happens, I swear.  
> Enjoy!

“Hey, Christine? Think I might have something!” Michael called, swinging himself around the corner into Christine’s office.

Christine, bless her heart, didn’t even look up, half buried in a stack of documents.The only acknowledgement she gave of Michael’s presence was a semi-curious humming noise.

“So, y’know that weird website I mentioned finding? Hacked into the company. Still have  _ no  _ idea what they are, but I did find out that they’re having a demonstration party next week. Right here in New York! Looked super exclusive though, there’s like fifty three people going, and they’re all either filthy or terrifying brilliant software engineers, which already makes me interested. I absoloutely took the liberty of adding myself to the guest list, you want to be my plus one? It’s black tie, I know you love that.”

Christine did perk up at that, actually snapping out of her intense study of the documents to look at Michael.

“Wait, seriously? I love black tie events, they’re so fun to sneak into! ...No, wait, what night was that on?”

“Friday. Uh, not this Friday, but the next.”

“ _ Shit _ . My little sister’s flying up next Friday, I’ve gotta pick her up from the airport. Tell me how it goes, though.”

“Damn it, fine. I’ll give you the play by play after. Anyways, I’m done for the day, so I’m heading home. You gonna stay a while longer?” 

As Michael asked that, Christine's stomach let out an audible rumble, causing her to look at it in surprise. Carefully, she stood up, pulling a face as her joints audibly cracked.

“Nah, I think I’m done for the day. Gotta love hyperfocus. I think I died two hours ago and just didn’t notice. Hey, wanna go get dinner? ‘Cause I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling Denny’s.” 

“Christine. I am always feeling Denny’s. Let’s go.”

And with that, they were quick to gather their things, lock up the office, and leave.

When Michael and Christine had first met at a bar, they’d been bored and annoyed, both dragged there by coworkers they disliked at jobs they also disliked.. It wasn’t exactly surprising that they’d hit off, and within an hour of knowing each other ended up drunkenly scheming a future as business partners.

As it turned out, drunk them were brilliant, because that was what they had ended up doing.

While neither of them really thrived in an academic environment, they  _ were _ incredibly smart. One test later, they were both licensed private investigators, and opening their agency together. Said agency being one tiny office rented on the bad side of town. Still, they’d had a good amount of cases, and soon enough were making money. And more importantly, were enjoying their jobs.

Most people didn’t get to run a business with their best friend, but Michael and Christine had never been most people, and were quite happy with that fact.

A few years had brought them more cases, more money, and a better office, one with small but private offices for each of them, and a little reception area. Not that they  _ had _ a receptionist, but it did look nice.

They also got more variety of cases. Obviously, the most common was proving whether or not a partner was cheating on someone, which was initially weird, and now mostly just boring. Heterosexuals were strange. But they paid well, and the cases could be handled by just one of them at a time, doubling the money flow.

This case was not a standard ‘whose cheating on who’ situation. It was considerably less funny, and required both of them.

Missing persons cases were sad. Missing persons where the person in question had been missing for eight years were just depressing. Not helped by how hopeless the client had looked, explaining that he didn’t have any hope of them finding the poor bastard alive. He just wanted to know something about what had happened to his son.

Which meant long hours of going through case files from eight years ago, given to them by the police (specifically Christine's cop ex boyfriend), of going through a laptop that was almost a decade obsolete whose owner hadn’t touched it in far too long, and looking at pictures of a smiling teenager, a bit awkward, a lot nerdy, but undeniably alive.

He would have been twenty four now if he was alive. Poor bastard.

Still, while by all accounts he’d been a normal kid, his internet history was a red flag in of itself. It was normal nerdy teenager stuff - tumblr, fanfiction, let’s plays, and a frankly impressive amount of porn - right up until two weeks before he vanished. It had all abruptly stopped, replaced with a few checks of email, and not much else.

Michael had dug deeper, and uncovered the weird shit.

It was hard to decrypt, but before he’d vanished, the kid had been visiting one company’s website a few times. Said website being hidden deep within the darkweb, and providing almost no information regarding what the hell the company did. Really, the vagueness just made it more sketchy, which was Michael considered himself completely justified in digitally adding his name to the guest list for the upcoming demo.

He wasn’t sure if the company had something to do with the kid’s disappearance, but Michael was going to get to the bottom of it. Best case scenario, he got answers. Worst case scenario… he found out what the company did, and then got kicked out of the demo party. Which, really. He’d been thrown out of black tie affairs before. He specifically bought dress shoes in could sprint in for a reason.

~

He was dressed in his best suit, his shoes were polished, and he looked like he belonged at any rich person party.

Still, Michael didn’t like sneaking into formal events as much as Christine did. She loved the performance of it. He just felt awkward and out of place. Still, it was kind of fun to blatantly trick people, and as he arrived at the building and was waved in as a confirmed guest, this was no exception.

Digital invite lists were the  _ best _ . Much easier than trying to bluff his way in, even if Christine could usually pull it off half of the time.

Still, Michael stuck to the edges of the crowd, tried not to look like he was crashing the event, and did his best to project ‘socially awkward programmer’. Considering he could see at least two other people wearing the exact same look, he was probably fine.

Even if there was a bit more security than he would call justified, all of the guards clearly armed.

Michael was fine, and totally knew what he was doing. Right.

Definitely hadn’t gotten in over his head here.

Finally, after what felt like an hour of avoiding talking to people, but was probably more like ten minutes, a man in a sharp suit walked out onto the small stage.

“Good evening everyone, thank you for coming!”

He then cheerfully launched into a description about what exactly the company did.

Michael was probably going to be horrified in a while, but he was too busy being deeply shocked and mildly confused.

Quantum nanotechnology supercomputers, with fully functioning AI’s. That went inside of people’s brains and controlled them. Squips.

Michael had many questions about the morality of the situation, but none of those were answered. Instead, the presenter continued cheerfully going down the rabbit hole of fucked up, describing how Squip hosts were obedient, polite, and would succeed at any task they were assigned without a word of complaint.

The worst part was, none of the people around him seemed to have objections or even concerns about it either, smiling and nodding and watching the entire speech with interest. No horror, no disgust, no worry.

Rich people were fucking evil. 

“And don’t worry about security! Through years of careful testing, we’ve found the perfect system to protect our product from outside interference! You see, our biocomputers work in networks, with all orders relayed from a single point. The Primary host holds up the network, and controls the Standards. Remember! A network is only as safe as it’s Primary. That’s why all of our Primaries are kept inside our facilities, protected and cared for. Now, the technology isn’t quite ready for the market yet - we’re still collecting data from our Primaries regarding exactly what they can handle. The main risk to a Primary is overloading their system - put too many Standards in a network, and Primary overloads and is destroyed. Luckily, a networks capacity only grows exponentially with time - though the exact numbers of that growth are still being researched. But don’t take it from me! Take it from the Primary of one of our largest networks!”

As the presenter rambled on, cheerfully talking about accidentally killing people, an incredibly handsome man in an expensive, well tailored suit got onto the stage, a pleasant smile on his face.

“Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jeremy Heere!”

What were the odds.

_ What were the fucking odds _ .

There was polite applause, which Michael numbly joined in, staring at the man on stage, because he knew this man.

Well, not personally. But he knew him, in the sense of hours spent looking at photos of him as a teenager, reading through police reports, searching his internet history, speaking with his mourning father, searching for scraps of evidence that might tell the story of the death of one boy. A boy who was not dead, who was alive and imprisoned, dehumanized and reduced to a product, who was speaking calmly on stage about the specifics of the Primary program.

It was hard to tell that this was actually the person he was hired to find. The last pictures of him had been when he was sixteen, and even by teenage standards, he’d been less than impressive. The man on stage was gorgeous, even with Michael being gay and therefore somewhat biased. He was un-objectively handsome, and incredibly so. Eight years changed a person, but the similarities between Jeremy and his old pictures were still there, in the colour of his hair, the features of his face, his overall build.

Michael pulled his phone out of his pocket, and took a stealthy picture of him anyways. He’d compare it to the pictures of the teenage Jeremy later, just to be sure.

Also, evidence. If this man really was Jeremy Heere, and the Jeremy Heere that he was looking for, it would help to have hard proof of what he’d found. Explaining this to Mr. Heere was going to be interesting, and probably emotional.

He half-listened to the speech Jeremy was giving, parsing it out as mostly mindless technobabble, nice words meant to impress the crowd. It wasn’t long, and when it was over, there was another round of applause, and the event was dissolved into mingling. Jeremy stepped off of the stage, and was immediately approached by several different people.

Michael kept to the edge of the crowd, watching as Jeremy Heere smiled, laughed, and generally looked all around thrilled to be here and talking to these people. It was definitely an act. It had to be an act.

Nobody could be that pleased at being treated like a object, being dressed up and pitched as a product to buy. But the presenter had been vague about how deep the Squip’s control ran. All he had said was that it controlled their actions, nothing about whether the hosts thoughts and feelings were still their own. If they had any free will under the facade.

For all Michael knew, Jeremy’s mind had been warped enough that he was legitimately thrilled to be here. He didn’t know, and he probably wasn’t going to find out by sitting and watching from the other side of the room.

Michael kept an eye on Jeremy, looking for an opportunity to speak with the man alone, to try and get a genuine read on him. But he was the focus of the evening, and the crowd didn’t seem willing to part with him, so Michael settled for sticking to the edges of the group, listening to Jeremy’s words, but not speaking straight to him.

Finally, as the night was beginning to wind down, Jeremy delicately extracted himself from the circle of guests, and slipped out one of the side doors while the attention was off him. The guard beside the door, a short, blond man, followed him out.

Seeing his chance, Michael went after them.

Jeremy walked down the hall, tailed by the guard, and both ducked into the mens bathroom. Michael stood by the door, debating entering, or listening to see if Jeremy and the guard spoke at all.

While he was weighing his options, there was the sound of someone vomiting inside the bathroom.

There was quiet for a moment, before vomiting again, and then silence.

A toilet flushed.

Michael entered the bathroom.

Jeremy was kneeling in front of a toilet, head bowed, resting his forehead on the porcelain, and breathing deeply. Beside him, the guard was leaning over, and had a hand pressed to Jeremy’s back.

“Are you alright?” Michael asked.

The guard immediately stood, and faced Michael with a glare that was surprisingly intimidating, considering it came from someone who was five foot five.

“He’s fine. Get out.” The guard snapped, moving to fill the doorway of the stall, blocking Michael from Jeremy.

“...I heard vomiting. Should I get help, or something?”

“Look-”

“I’m alright.” Jeremy said, getting to his feet again, and putting a hand on the guards shoulder, pushing past him. “It’s just a migraine; it’ll pass. Sorry to bother you, sir.”

Jeremy’s smile was back on, and the only sign of anything being amiss was a faint tightness around his eyes.

“...Well, if you say so. Uh, hey, if you have a minute, I was wondering - are you being treated okay? Like, they’re not hurting you, are they?”

Jeremy tilted his head slightly, mild confusion entering his expression. Behind him, the guard raised his eyebrows.

“Of course not. Primaries are vital resources to the company, we are kept safe, and in perfect health. Harm to the product is against the company’s best interests, after all.” He said, tone perfectly pleasant. Something about it was still uncanny valley. Probably Jeremy calling himself a product.

“Yeah, but like… are you okay? Not you as a Primary, I mean you as a person. Emotionally, and all.”

Jeremy’s smile froze on his face.

“I am very happy. I’m honoured to serve the company.” He said, voice upbeat, and something sharp and cold in his eyes.

“Um…”

“Thank you for your concern, sir. I’m always happy to serve. If you don’t mind, I should turn in for the night. Will that be all?” Jeremy said, cutting off whatever Michael was going to say. The look in his eyes was still something alarming.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks for answering my questions.” Michael said somewhat awkwardly, stepping out of the way. Jeremy nodded to him, and then left the bathroom, guard giving Michael one last suspicious look before leaving with Jeremy.

Alone, Michael let out a long breath.

This was so exceptionally fucked.

~

He spent a while in the bathroom collecting himself, before returning to the party. Within a few minutes of his return, he was approached by a severe looking woman, who launched into a spiel about job opportunities with the company for programmers of his skill. For an absolutely terrifying moment, Michael had thought he was caught, before remembering that right, that had been what he’d invited himself as.

He smiled, nodded, took the booklets she offered, stayed non-committal, and promised to call with his answer in a few days.

Michael went home.

The hiring information was left on his coffee table, to look over later. He went to his desk, and retrived one of the pictures of Jeremy that his father had given them. He compared it to the picture on his phone.

They were definitely the same person.

There was a text from Christine on his phone, sent half an hour ago, asking him how it went.

He didn't know how to reply.

~

The next day, Michael went into the office, and he told Christine everything he’d found, showed her the picture he’d taken, repeated his conversation with Jeremy, and gave her the recruiting booklets and papers he’d been given.

After going through all of it, Christine ran a hand through her hair, and leaned back in her seat.

“Well, fuck.”

“Right?”

“This is… a bit above our paygrade. And very fucked up. We should pass this onto the police, wash our hands of the whole thing, and pretend it never happened.” She said firmly. Michael nodded in agreement.

“So, since we’re obviously  _ not _ going to do that, what’s the plan?”

Michael beamed.

This was why Christine was his best friend. They just got each other.

“Well, I’m thinking I’ve got to infiltrate the place as an employee. Talk to Jeremy more, try and figure more out. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s not as happy as he said he was, just from how he reacted when I asked if he was actually okay.”

“Besides, you might find out how to shut the Squips down while you’re in there! I mean, it sounds like this is not an isolated case. A lot of people are being hurt, this isn’t even about our job. It’s just doing the right thing. Let’s get some justice!”

“Fuck yeah!”

They high fived, and then Michael remembered another difficult explanation he had to give.

“I’ll call them and take the job later today. But first… we should probably call Mr. Heere in. This is not an over the phone conversation.”

~

Michael had called the company, and fed them his best line of bullshit about wanting to work with them. He’d been told that that was excellent, and he started in three days.

When he arrived on his first day, there was already someone waiting in the lobby for him, who instantly whisked him off on a tour of the building.

“And you’ll be doing most of your work down here.” The lady giving him orientation said cheerfully, showing him down a hallway. Said hallway had six guards standing in it, clearly protecting the single door, and giving Michael and the woman some  _ incredibly _ suspicious stares.

He resisted the urge to wince, and did his best to look like he belonged there and was totally cool with brainwashing people.

“So uh… is it a high security area?” He asked as they started down the hall, thankfully unchallenged by the guards, but still feeling deeply uncomfortable.

“What? Oh, no, those are just bodyguards. There must be a Primary inside. If they get in your way, just order them to leave, they’re very obedient.” The woman said, apparently not realizing that she was talking about a literal human being. Michael hated all of these people and was going to burn this place to the ground.

The room they entered was dark, with most of the light coming from a solid wall of computer, with several monitors, and multiple panels with buttons and switches on them. It looked more like it belong in NASA or somewhere. There were a few desk chairs, but all were empty. At the back of the room was a comfortable looking couch, probably for programmers to crash in during late night sessions, but it was occupied already.

There were four more guards inside the room, two of them standing at either end of the couch, leaning against the wall, and a third one having clearly taken an office chair from the computer bank. They seemed to be in quiet conversation. The fourth guard was sharing the couch with a man in dark slacks and a white dress shirt, who was clearly their Primary. Said Primary was flat out laying down on top of the fourth guard, face buried in his chest, and loosely hugging him around the middle, while the guards fingers carded through his hair.

Honestly, it looked incredibly intimate. If Michael had walked in on that scene anywhere else, he would have apologized and ran like hell.

But the woman didn’t pay them any attention, so Michael had to follow her into the room, and settle for just averting his eyes to give the pair some privacy. They didn’t seem to care about the newcomers either.

“So, this is the terminal you’ll be working at-” The woman started before being cut off.

“Keep it down, he’s got a migraine.” One of the guards said sharply. The voice sounded familiar too, and when Michael looked again, he recognized the couch guard as being the short, blonde one from the demo. The one who had followed Jeremy to the bathroom, and made him stop talking to Michael.

The Primary shifted a bit, and Michael realized he was Jeremy Heere.

Honestly, what were the odds? Michael just kept having good luck with this case.

This was a bit of a surprise however. From the way Jeremy had been escorted around the demo, and pulled away from Michael, he’d assumed that the guards were major factor in keeping the kidnap victims under control. This… did not look like a prisoner interacting with his captor.

Or maybe it was, Michael didn’t know. Stockholm syndrome was a hell of a drug.

The woman gave them a look, but obligingly lowered her voice as she talked Michael through what he would be doing. It sounded mostly boring, administration work, albeit with goddamn brainwashing robots, and collecting data from the people with computers in their heads. Which kind of added a layer of disturbing surreality to the whole affair.

On the bright side, Michael would probably not be bored.

After the explanation was done, Michael was left alone to get to work, which he did. None of the guards made any move to interact with him, and he was entirely too intimidated to try and talk to them. Jeremy seemed to be sleeping, or at the very least not interested in facing the world anytime soon. The guard had said he’d had a migraine, just like at the demo two days ago.

He mentally added chronic migraines as a possible side effect to being a Primary. Would make sense, after all.

After a few hours of mundane data sorting that was only slightly livened up by the fact that the data was human lives, Michael was hungry.

The benefit of working at an extremely shady top secret company (or at least infiltrating them) was that hours were apparently very flexible, as long as the work got done. Michael could go for lunch whenever the fuck he wanted, and he wanted now.

“Hey, I’m going to the cafeteria, any of you want anything?” He asked, addressing the guards for the first time, and keeping his voice low in deference to Jeremy’s apparent migraine.

The four guards all stared at him, with varying levels of surprise and suspicion, and didn’t answer.

Jeremy gave an emphatic denial, although it was somewhat muffled by him not raising his head from the guards chest.

Said guard frowned at him.

“You need to eat, man.”

“Don’t wanna.” Jeremy complained, a mildly whining tone to his voice.

“Even if you can’t keep it down, you should try. Get him something bland, and easy on the stomach. And make sure it’s kosher.”

Michael saluted, and left the room.

The facility was big, and it took some wandering to remember exactly how to get to the cafeteria. But soon enough, he was on his way back with a sandwich for Jeremy, another for himself, and a bottle of water for the poor guy. Important to stay hydrated.

When he got back to the room, Jeremy was sitting up now, albeit slumped against the short blond guard. Now that his face was visible, he looked awful, concerningly pale, and with dark circles under his eyes.

He wondered how much of that was the migraine, and how much of it was normal. He’d definitely been wearing makeup during the demo party, albeit very subtle makeup.

He looked up at Michael’s return, and Michael hesitantly smiled, offering the sandwich and the water bottle. Jeremy gave a tired smile in return, and quietly thanked him.

The guard grabbed the water bottle before Jeremy could, and he gave him an exasperated look in response.

“Rich. Seriously?” Jeremy asked, eyebrows raised. The short guard - apparently Rich - didn’t respond, only shrugging slightly, and opened the water bottle and took a short swig. He seemed to be waiting for something, though Michael didn’t know what, and when whatever it was didn’t happen, he passed the water bottle over to Jeremy, who was now looking annoyed and amused.

“Honestly, you’re so paranoid. Thanks for the sandwich and water… uh…”

“Michael. We met at the demo a few days ago.”

“Oh, right! You were the one asking the weird questions about if I was okay.”

“Yeah, and on that note, seriously, are you okay? How often do you get migraines like that?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I just had a load of Standards added to my network, I’ll have migraines until they’re integrated. It’s kinda like a vacation, honestly. Except with headaches and nausea the whole time.”

“...Sick leave. You’re thinking of sick leave.”

“Right, that thing.”

“Why are you even here if you’re sick? Shouldn’t you be at home or something?”

Jeremy snorted, and two of the guards snickered. The third rolled her eyes, and Rich just glared at Michael. Glaring seemed to be his default expression.

“You  _ are _ new. Primaries live in the facilities, we’re not allowed outside. Gotta be protected. This is home.”

Michael did his best to keep a neutral expression in response to that, and not show the horror he was definitely feeling. He couldn’t even go  _ outside _ . Every new detail that Michael learned just made the whole thing worse.

It had been difficult explaining what he’d found to Mr. Heere. Informing him that his probably dead son was actually alive, and had spent the last eight years as a major figure in a brain computer conspiracy was… definitely not something Michael had needed to do before. He’d had to lay out all the evidence he gathered, including the subtle picture he’d gotten of Jeremy at the demo, and re-told every word of the conversation they’d had.

After Mr. Heere had been convinced that his son really was alive and imprisoned, he’d broken down crying right there in Michael’s office. Which was honestly a bit awkward, considering Michael wasn’t great with feelings, but Christine had covered for him, thank god.

Really, this entire situation was just… so far out of Michael’s pay grade, it wasn’t even funny. But at some point, it had stopped being about money or a job, and started being about doing the right thing. Michael wasn’t sure exactly where the turning point had been, but it was probably some time during the demo. Maybe when they’d put Jeremy up on stage and called him a product.

It was still strange to think that the awkward, nerdy teenager whose picture Michael had been looking at for the last few weeks was now the handsome, confident man in front of him. Teenage Jeremy looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t quite belong in his own skin. Adult Jeremy looked like he knew exactly what he was doing at all times.

But at the same time, in the pictures of him as teenager, Jeremy had been awkward, but his smiles were real. He had personality, gifts and flaws and opinions.

The man on the couch was a mask. A perfect smile, an unnatural confidence, and the general sense that something was very wrong with him.

Maybe it was the dark circles under his eyes, or pale skin that almost never saw sunlight. But the dead, empty look in his eyes didn’t help much.

~

When Jeremy woke up, his migraine had receded slightly.

It was still there, of course, and he could feel it pounding in his temples, but the light from the hall shining under his door didn’t make him want to vomit, and he was actually interested in eating breakfast.

“Morning.” He mumbled, not certain who he was talking to. Who was on shift right now? He didn’t remember.

“Morning.” Ethan said softly, and there was a soft rustle of someone moving in the dark. “How’re you feeling?”

“Bit better. Get the light switch?”

When Jeremy had first been moved to New York, the light in his dorm room was bright and white, and made the room look washed out and sterile. He hadn’t minded until the first time he’d had a migraine, and turning on the light had left him doubled over in pain, face pressed into his pillow to block the light and hide his watering eyes.

The next day, Lynn had used her free time to find a hardware store, and spent almost all of her weekly stipend on a new lightbulb, the light soft and dim. He loved his guards.

It was a little thing, but it allowed Jeremy to at least be able to see what he was doing when his headaches weren’t as bad. He chose his outfit for the day on autopilot, almost all of his clothing practically identical. What did it matter if his dress shirt was white or light blue? It was all the same in the end.

At least his dorm room in New York was slightly more spacious than other places he’d stayed in. He was  _ still _ fairly confident that when he’d been in Houston they’d made him sleep in a repurposed storage closet. It wasn’t much, but Jeremy at least had a dresser and a small bathroom. Most facilities made the biocomputers use a communal bathroom space, and while he reluctantly got used to it, that didn’t mean he _ liked  _ it. Having his own bathroom was nice.

He wasn’t big on showers when he had serious migraines, the noise agonizing for him. His scalp felt itchy, and his hair was probably awful. Dry shampoo could only do so much.

“Feeling better?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah, a bit. Still hurts, but like. Less? I’m gonna shower.”

Ethan gave a thumbs up, and resumed intently staring at the thin air to his left. Probably the night shifts group chat, Jeremy specifically set it up so that he didn’t get any alerts from it, allowing his guards to still chat while Jeremy was asleep. Now that he was awake, they were probably wrapping up their conversation, and shifting over to the main group chat.

Sure enough, right as Jeremy was stepping into the shower, a window popped up in front of his vision, the guards saying good morning, and being glad he was feeling better.

Jeremy loved his guards. They were the best thing that had ever happened to him.

And sure, it was a little grating to be under almost constant surveillance, but he’d adjusted. And it was nice to have people around who actually saw him as a human being, instead of just a machine, valuable and delicate, but a machine all the same.

It probably helped that every Primary was guarded by some of their own Standards. Jeremy didn’t even need to be introduced to any of them. The names and faces of all three thousand two hundred and seventeen of his Standards were practically burned into his mind.

The last two hundred of those had been added to his network a week ago, and the processing migraine was a vicious one while his system got used to it. Having to do one of those damn demo parties did not help.

And there’d been that weird guy who talked to him in the bathroom, and then tried to talk to him again the day before. And had he brought him food?

**_“Yes, it was very strange.”_ ** The Squip said, suddenly there and leaning against the sink.

Jeremy rolled his eyes, and snapped his towel at it.

“Dammit, we’ve talked about this, don’t manifest while I’m naked. Let me put on pants.” He said. The Squip grinned, raised its hands in a mock placating gesture, and vanished again.

It wasn’t gone, of course. It was never really gone. Jeremy could always feel it, in every part of his circuity, every line of code. His own personal virus.

There was a ping in the groupchat

Micah was off shift right now, and she liked to use what little free time the guards schedule had to go out into the city. Unlike Jeremy, they weren’t fully confined to the facility, free to leave during the sparse few hours they had to themselves. Their Squips wouldn’t let them run away. Jeremy’s Squip wouldn’t let them run away.

All angsting aside, Micah had apparently found a cute dog. It only took a moment of focus before Jeremy was seeing through her eyes, looking at her hands petting the overjoyed corgi she’d come across.

Holy _ shit _ , that was a cute dog.

He saved an image of it, and showed the rest of the groupchat, settling his attention back into his body as the chat exploded, declaring the dog a good boy, and congratulating Micah on the find.

Jeremy liked that his guards went looking for things outside that they thought he’d enjoy, liked that they showed him endless images of flowers and dogs and trees and snow and birds, let him see every aspect of life that he couldn’t have, but it was bittersweet. For everything they showed him, for everything he saw through their eyes, he was never looking at it himself, never Jeremy’s hands that touched it.

He missed being outside,

He missed a lot of things.

But moping about his life was a bad start to the day, so he pushed it aside, and got dressed instead. Sure enough, the second his pants were on, the Squip was back, giving a cheerful, sarcastic wave. Jeremy gave it the finger.

**_“So, now that you’re feeling better, we’ve got work to get back to.”_ ** It said, tone brisk and professional.

“Obviously. How awful have you been to my poor Standards this time?”

**_“Excuse you, I’m a delight.”_ **

Jeremy shoved his toothbrush in his mouth, looked at the Squip in the mirror, and silently raised an eyebrow.

**_“Look, only three of them cried. It’s not my fault you baby them.”_ **

“Sure. And what did you do to them to make them cry?”

The Squip let out the bitchiest sigh it was capable of. Jeremy continued brushing his teeth.

**_“Eva Wells’s husband was asking too many questions, so I had her file for divorce. Eric Bradley didn’t want to move cities, and Lisa Brown doesn’t like the university she’s going to be going to. If you weren’t so soft on them, they wouldn’t complain so much.”_ **

Jeremy shot it a glare, then spat toothpaste in the sink. Whenever he was down with migraines for a while, his first task was undoing (or at the very least remedying) whatever damage the Squip had done in his absence. Which was usually a lot, as the Squip was a dick.

Eva was in Phoenix, and had been in Jeremy’s network for around a year. They’d noticed the problem of her husband getting suspicious, and really the only options were to separate them or Squip him. He’d planned to at least give her the option of choosing, but the Squip had bulldozed over that. Still, divorces weren’t that fast, she could still Squip her husband and salvage the relationship if she wanted, or let go and leave him free. He’d speak with her about it once he was a bit more awake.

Eric Bradley lived in San Francisco, and the Squip wanted him to move to Boston, to help boost the struggling members of the network already there. Boston had a heavy Resistance movement, and they’d been making more trouble than usually. Personally, Jeremy was thrilled anytime the Resistance MDR’d someone in his network and got away with it, but the Squip was understandably less pleased, so something would have to be done. Still, just because Eric was the easiest one to move, didn’t mean he wanted to. There were at least three other people in his network who would actually like to live somewhere else, and Jeremy had no problem dealing with a bit more work to keep people happy.

As for Lisa… there wasn’t much he could do for her. There were five hundred and sixty three teenagers in Jeremy’s network, which were five hundred and sixty three more than he was comfortable with. The Squip calculated exactly what university they would attend, and what degree they would be taking, in order for them to be most useful to the network, or to the company. In an emergency, a high level lawyer would be very useful, so the Squip had decided that seventeen year old Lisa Brown was going to be going to be studying law and Harvard. Her real passion was art, and Jeremy felt bad for her, really he did, but there really wasn’t any way to wiggle around this. The Squip had made up its mind, and Jeremy didn’t have any real viable alternatives to offer. 

He’d speak with some of the other Standards her age about Harvard. Lisa might not want to be there, but the poor kid would have it easier if she at least had some peers with her.

The Squip didn’t like that Jeremy insisted on doing things like this. Its algorithms and decisions were made with cold logic, treating the Standards as pieces in a game, moving each to the most opportune position. Jeremy looking out for their well being interfered with that. But so long as what needed to be done got done, his alterations were allowed.

After all, a Primary and their Squip were supposed to be partners, and run their network together. Co-operation turned out better results.

Jeremy and his Squip weren’t required to like each other (and they _ didn’t _ ), but after eight years of sharing minds, they  _ were _ an effective team. Jeremy honestly hated himself for doing what the company wanted, but the alternative was leaving over three thousand people to deal with his Squip, and that wasn’t something he’d inflict on anyone.

So back to work at the first possible moment.

He spat out his toothpaste, rinsed out his mouth, fixed his hair, and started the day.

Ten minutes later, he was curled up on a couch with a laptop, coffee and bagel. Generally speaking, he fucking hated coffee, but it actually helped with his migraines, and damn it he was getting shit done today. And sure, he didn’t  _ need _ the laptop, but despite the literal computer system in his brain, Jeremy was only human. Work was easier if there was something he was physically working on.

Whenever he was installed in a facility, his first priority was usually exploring, and finding quiet, out of the way areas to work. Ones that were big enough to fit him and several of his bodyguards, but were unlikely to have any actual staff in them.

When the door open, he didn’t bother looking up from his laptop screen, busy reading over a report of the Resistance activity in Boston. They’d broken into Eli Varsek’s apartment twice now, this was getting ridiculous…

“Morning Jeremy! Feeling better?” Someone said, probably one of his guards coming on shift.

“Check the groupchat.” He muttered, making an annotation to have Eli move to a different apartment building.

“...Huh?”

Jeremy looked up, and saw that he was not speaking to one of his guards.

It was the weird programmer from the party and the day before. Matthew or something.

**_“Michael._ ** ”

Right, Michael.

“Oh, it’s you. Morning.”

“So hey, I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, with the not being allowed outside thing? And that sucks man, especially because the cafeteria selection is not that great, it’s like ninety five percent healthy shit. So, stopped at 7/11 before I came in… and got you a bag of chips!”

Michael pulled the chips out of his backpack with a dramatic gesture, beaming happily. Jeremy stared blankly, not completely comprehending what was happening here.

“I’m not sure what flavours you liked, but I figured regular was a safe bet. Can’t go wrong with a good regular flavour, right? Anyways, glad you’re feeling better!”

Jeremy took the bag, and Michael sat down at his terminal.

Jeremy stared at the bag of chips.

He hadn’t had chips in… fuck. Years. When he was seventeen, in LA. The facility he was held in for the first two years. One of the other Primaries being kept there had both a semi-shady background, and an astounding lack of fucks to give, and the natural conclusion had been to teach an impressionable teenager how to pick pocket. They’d practiced on the staff, and used their ill gotten gains at the vending machine. Not like they had anywhere else to spend money.

LA had been nice. It was before Primaries had to have bodyguards, before Jeremy had realized that he was trapped in this life forever. Before he’d given up.

“Thanks.” He said quietly, tearing the bag open.

Salt and grease. It had been  _ way _ too long since he’d eaten something as unhealthy as a bag of chips. God, he’d missed it.

He still didn’t know what Michael wanted (because he did want something, everybody wanted something, he couldn’t trust anyone that wasn’t in his network), but Jeremy wasn’t exactly complaining about his methods so far.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so rundown for those of you who didn't follow the Primary/Bodyguard/Standard thing: A network is a group of synchronized Squips, with one of them calling the shots and guiding the group to an overall best outcome. The host of the Squip running the network is called a Primary, as in they're the host of the primary squip. Everyone else is a Standard, because they have the standard model. Originally, a network was like in canon, with everyone connected, and one person being given Mountain Dew Red would lead to everyone's Squip being destroyed. Obviously, that made security issues, from people like Michael who wanted to save their friends/family from brain robots, and found it very easy to do so.  
> So the system was reworked, and now the connection is one way. Saving a Standard frees that one Standard, and nobody else. Freeing a Primary takes down the entire network. So Primaries started being saved, and the company basically kidnapped them all and moved them into facilities for safety, and then facilities got raided, so a few Standards in each network also got kidnapped, and were assigned as bodyguards to their Primary. Eventually they learned that the longer someone is a Primary, the larger the network they can handle, and that it grows exponentially. So Jeremy, who has been a Primary for eight years, has a really big network, and as a result is a very valuable Primary. He's got a lot of guards. I made one of them Rich, and then realized that he has 19 more guards and I already have roles for literally every other canon character, so um yeah Jeremy spends his days with Rich, an entourage of OC's, the Squip, and now Michael.


End file.
